Blog Assignment 6 (Pt. 1): Digitization & Preservation

Hafner, Katie. "History, Digitized (and Abridged)." New York Times. March 10, 2007. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html

In "History, Digitized (and Abridged)," Katie Hafner reports that "items left behind in nondigital form [...] are in danger of disappearing from the collective cultural memory, potentially leaving our historical fabric riddled with holes." The idea behind this sensational claim is that in our increasingly digital era, anything (be it manuscripts, photographs, or artifacts) that isn't readily available on the internet will be passed over by the majority of users in favor of those documents that can be accessed from the comfort of one's own couch. Given her ostensible subject matter, it is surprising that Hafner entertains so little discussion of the the relationship between preservation and digitization.

As we discussed in class two weeks ago, individuals and institutions alike often conflate digitization with preservation, and Hafner is no exception. Her article fails to recognize that institutional protocols for ensuring the persistent preservation of digital objects (such as those outlined in the OAIS Reference Model) are necessary to prevent the items that are digitized today from becoming "lost" to the future researchers. Hafner cites the amateur digitization initiative undertaken by the Genealogical Society of Utah as a creative response to the high cost of digitization. However, though the digital images taken by the Mormon Church's genealogists in over 200 cities may provide short term access to archival material, without a sustainable repository structure, controlled metadata, and careful adherence to image and file format standards, it will be extremely difficult for the Genealogical Society of Utah to maintain their collection over time.

If Hafner's article overlooks some of the important tensions between preservation and digitization, it does attempt to address the high cost of digitization. Hafner points to collaboration between libraries, archives, and companies like IBM as one possible solution. Though such alliances do hold some promise, over-reliance on commercial entities to fund digitization initiatives is troubling for a number of reasons. The most obvious of these is that archival institutions do not want to have their digital collections programs and policies being set by businesses whose chief interest will always be their bottom line rather than the institution's needs. If we allow IBM to decide which collections ought to be digitized, then those that best showcase the company's latest technological advances may be prioritized ahead of those collections that are more important users, but less flashy. This is why it is important to research how to find better solutions to the economic problems that plague digital initiatives. Though some projects like the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digitial Preservation and Access are attempting to address this issue, it should be a chief concern for all those in the field of preservation management.

---
Hafner, Katie. "History, Digitized (and Abridged)." New York Times. March 10, 2007. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/business/yourmoney/11archive.html

Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). Available at public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/650x0b1.pdf

Sustaining the Digital Investment: Issues and Challenges of Economically Sustainable Digital Preservation, December 2008. Interim Report of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on sustainable Digital Preservation and Access. Available at: http://brtf.sdsc.edu/biblio/BRTF_Interim_Report.pdf